On this page: Heracleides

r 12. A native of Tarentum, and one of the chief counsellors of Philip V. king of Macedonia. He is said to have been by profession an architect, and having in this capacity been entrusted with some repairs of the walls of Tarentum (at that time in the hands of Hannibal), he was accused of intend­ing to betray the city to the Romans. In con­sequence of this charge he fled from Tarentum, and took refuge in the Roman camp, but was soon suspected of having opened secret negotiations with Hannibal and the Carthaginian garrison. After this double treachery he thought it prudent to quit Italy, and repaired to the court of Philip, where, by his ability and cunning, he made himself at first useful to the king as a convenient tool for carrying into execution the most nefarious schemes, and ulti­mately rose to a high place in his favour and con­fidence. He is said to have especially gained these by the address with which, pretending to have been ill-used and driven into banishment by Philip, he ingratiated himself with the Rhodians, and succeeded in setting fire to their arsenal, and bun> ing great part of their fleet. It is not difficult to believe that a man who had risen to power by such arts as these should have abused it when at­tained; and we are told that he made use of his influence with the king to get rid of all those that were opposed to his views, and even induced him to put to death five of the leading members of his council of state at once. But by these and other such measures he rendered Philip so obnoxious to his subjects, that the king at length found himself obliged to yield to the popular clamour, displaced Heracleides, whom he had not long before em­ployed in the command of his fleet, and threw him into prison, b.c.;199. Whether he was sub­sequently put to death we are not informed. (Po­ly b. xiii. 4, 5; Diod. Exc. Vales, xxviii. pp. 572, 573; Polyaen. v. 17. § 2; Liv. xxxi, 16, 33, xxxii, 5.)

13. Of Gyrton in Thessaly, commanded the Thessalian cavalry in the army of Philip at the battle of Cynoscephalae. (Polyb. xviii. 5.)

14. Of'Byzantium, was sent as ambassador by Antiochus the Great to the two Scipios immediately after they had crossed the Hellespont, b.c. 190. He was instructed to offer, in the king's name, the cession of Lampsacus, Smyrna, and some other cities of Ionia and Aeolia, and the payment of half the expenses of the war ; but these offers were sternly rejected by, the Romans: and Heracleides, having in vain sought to gain over Scipio Africanus by a private negotiation, returned to Antiochus to report the failure of his mission, (Polyb. xxi. JO —12; Liv. xxxvii. 34—36 ; Diod, xxix. Exc. Leg. p. 620 ;. Appian, Syr. 29.)

15. One of the three ambassadors sent by Anti­ochus Epiphanes to Rome to support his claims on Coele-Syria against Ptolemy Philometor, and de­fend his conduct in waging war upon him, b.c. 169. The same three ambassadors seem to have been sent again after Antiochus had been inter­rupted in his career of conquest by the mission of Popillius, and compelled to raise the siege of Alex­andria. (Polyb. xxvii. 17, xxviii. 1, 18.) It is not improbable that this Heracleides is the same who is spoken of by Appian (Syr. 45) as one of the favourites of Antiochus Epiphanes, by whom he was appointed to superintend the finances of his whole kingdom. After the death of Antiochus, and the establishment of DemetriusSoter upon the

throne (b.c. 162), Heracleides was driven into exile by the new sovereign. In order to revenge himself, he gave his support to, if he did not origi­nate, the imposture of AlexanderBalas, who set up a claim to the throne of Syria, pretending to be a son of Antiochus . Epiphanes. Heracleides re paired, together with the pretender and Laodice, daughter of Antiochus, to Rome, where, by the lavish distribution of his great wealth, and the in­fluence of his popular manners and address, he succeeded in obtaining an ambiguous promise of support from the Roman senate. . Of this he irnmer diately availed himself to raise a force of mercenary troops for the invasion of Syria, and effected a landing, together with Alexander, at Ephesus. (Appian, Syr. 47 ; Polyb. xxxiii. 14, 16.) What became of him after this we know not, as his name is not mentioned during the struggle that ensued between Alexander and Demetrius, nor after the elevation of the former to the throne of Syria..

16. Of Maronea, a Greek who had attached himself to the service of the Thracian chief Seuthes and was residing with him at the time that Xeno^ phon and the remains of the Ten Thousand arrived in Thrace after their memorable retreat, b. c. 300. Heracleides was entrusted with the charge of dis­posing of the booty that had been acquired by the Greeks and Thracians in common, but kept back for his own use a considerable part of the money produced by the sale of it. This fraudulent con­duct, together with the calumnious insinuations which he directed against Xenophon, when the latter urged with vigour the just claims of his troops, became the chief cause of the dissensions that arose between Seuthes and his Greek mercer naries, (Xen, Anab. vii. 3, 4, 5, 6.)

17. Of Aenus in Thrace, joined with his brother Python in the assassination of Cotys, king of Thrace, B. c. 358, for which piece of good service, though prompted by private revenge, they were rewarded by the Athenians with the right of citizenship, and with crowns of gold. (Dem. c. Aristocr. p. 659, ed. Reiske; Arist. Pol. v. 10.) According to Plutarch (adv. Coloten. 32), they had both been disciples of Plato. .[E. H. B.]

HERACLEIDES ('HpaffAcf^s). 1. Of Cumae, the author of a history of Persia (Il6/0<nKa), a por­tion of which bore the special title of 7rapa<TKei/a-(TTiKa, and, to -judge from the quotations from it, contained an account of the mode of life of the kings of Persia. (Athen. iv. p. 145, xii. p. 117; comp. ii. p. 48.) According to Diogenes Laertiua (v. 94), the Persica consisted of five books.

2. An historian who, according to Suidas, was a native, of Oxyrhinchis in Egypt, while Diogenes Laertius (v. 94) calls him a Callatian, or Alexan^-drian. He lived in the reign of Ptolemy Philo^-pator, and wrote a great work, entitled icrroptcu, of which the thirty-seventh book is quoted (Athen. iii. p. 98, xiii. p. 578) ; another, under the title SiaSoxii, in six books (Diog. Lae'rt. /. c.), which was probably of the same kind, if not identical with his evrtTo/xr) t£v ^wrlwos 8ia8ox&>:>. (Diog. Lae'rt. v. 79.) He further made an abridgement of the biographical work of Satyrus (Diog. Lae'rt. viii. 40, ix. 25), and wrote a work called Ae^€evriK6? \.6yos9 from which he received the nickname of 6 AtiJiSos. (Diog. Lae'rt. v. 94 ; Phot. Bill. Cod. 213.) He is often called, after his father, Heracleides, the son of Sarapion, and, under this name, Suidas at­tributes to him also philosophical works. It is-nofc